Hey guys and gals, question for you. What gives? Why so much hostility toward having “faith” in something, or faith in God, lets say?

Your thinking and rationale appears to be limited to that which can be verified by science. But science does change over time. So what is true today could be untrue tomorrow. So why be so stringent in your belief system. I mean, what is the first thing you would do the moment your boat capsizes 80 miles out? You would cry out to God Almighty. What is the first thing you would do the moment you hear the words, ‘it might be liver cancer, we have to verify, but if it is, two months, maybe four with chemo.’ Well you would cry out to God. When your life is on the life, I’m willing to bet, and I’m not a betting man, that each and every one of you in your own way would have a conversation with the dude you been fighting against all these years.

So I am trying to wrap my mind on how you process your thinking. Must all belief be verified by science? Is faith not allowed? What is your mental process to life?

Sorry, guess you guys can be my “lab rats” so I can understand the athiestic mind, I got a hunch that it purely stems from anger with God, sometimes I see things that make me ask - why? Why God, but I still take him at his Word, the bible, and I also put it down to his soverngty, and his Word says its a fallen world populated by sinful beings that need to be save and he is not willing that any should perish.

Thanks guys, look forward to your responses.

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Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matt 11:28-29

Hey guys and gals, question for you. What gives? Why so much hostility toward having “faith” in something, or faith in God, lets say?

Your thinking and rationale appears to be limited to that which can be verified by science. But science does change over time. So what is true today could be untrue tomorrow. So why be so stringent in your belief system. I mean, what is the first thing you would do the moment your boat capsizes 80 miles out? You would cry out to God Almighty. What is the first thing you would do the moment you hear the words, ‘it might be liver cancer, we have to verify, but if it is, two months, maybe four with chemo.’ Well you would cry out to God. When your life is on the life, I’m willing to bet, and I’m not a betting man, that each and every one of you in your own way would have a conversation with the dude you been fighting against all these years.

Still peddling the old “no atheists in foxholes” crap, eh Champ? Haven’t learned much in your time away, have you?

So I am trying to wrap my mind on how you process your thinking. Must all belief be verified by science? Is faith not allowed? What is your mental process to life?

Sorry, guess you guys can be my “lab rats” so I can understand the athiestic mind, I got a hunch that it purely stems from anger with God, sometimes I see things that make me ask - why? Why God, but I still take him at his Word, the bible, and I also put it down to his soverngty, and his Word says its a fallen world populated by sinful beings that need to be save and he is not willing that any should perish.

Thanks guys, look forward to your responses.

Ever think that it’s the idiots pushing the belief in God, and not the God itself, that we’re angry with? Maybe you could understand the atheistic mind better if you learned how to spell it.

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“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” - Voltaire

“Rational arguments do not work on religious people, otherwise there would be no religious people.”—Dr. House

Hey guys and gals, question for you. What gives? Why so much hostility toward having “faith” in something, or faith in God, lets say?

Your thinking and rationale appears to be limited to that which can be verified by science. But science does change over time. So what is true today could be untrue tomorrow. So why be so stringent in your belief system. I mean, what is the first thing you would do the moment your boat capsizes 80 miles out? You would cry out to God Almighty. What is the first thing you would do the moment you hear the words, ‘it might be liver cancer, we have to verify, but if it is, two months, maybe four with chemo.’ Well you would cry out to God. When your life is on the life, I’m willing to bet, and I’m not a betting man, that each and every one of you in your own way would have a conversation with the dude you been fighting against all these years.

So I am trying to wrap my mind on how you process your thinking. Must all belief be verified by science? Is faith not allowed? What is your mental process to life?

Sorry, guess you guys can be my “lab rats” so I can understand the athiestic mind, I got a hunch that it purely stems from anger with God, sometimes I see things that make me ask - why? Why God, but I still take him at his Word, the bible, and I also put it down to his soverngty, and his Word says its a fallen world populated by sinful beings that need to be save and he is not willing that any should perish.

Thanks guys, look forward to your responses.

Suicide bombers. 9/11. The Inquisition. The Salem Witch Hunts. Sick children dying because their religious parents had “faith” that God would heal them. And on a more benign level, fraudsters like Sylvia Browne and John Edward who prey (financially and emotionally) on the “faithful.” That should be more than enough reasons to remove “faith” from our mode of living. And through the lens of reason, such atrocities would be largely averted.

Science is the ONLY method that can verify our thinking and rationale. What else can there be? What system do you propose outside the bounds of science that would serve to verify… and I stress VERIFY, our thinking and rationale?

Yes, what is true today may be untrue tomorrow. But guess what? Science will reveal those truths\untruths! Science will make amends, refinements, and corrections to it’s ever growing knowledge base. Because that’s what science does! A dogma such as religion would never make course corrections because that would invalidate it’s claims of absolute “Truth.”

Personally, and under no circumstances, would I ever have a conversation with an imaginary being. But feel free to do so if YOUR boat ever capsizes.

My “mental process to life”? It can be summed up as, “first examine the facts and THEN form a reasonable conclusion.”

Anger with God?? That’s funny. How can one be angry with an imaginary being? Do you ever get angry with Zeus? Or with pink flying unicorns on Jupiter?

If it’s such a sinful world then why doesn’t God do it over? He already did it once with the flood. Why he can’t he get it right? Or is Satan (a being that he created) more powerful? Why not just get rid of Satan? If he loves us so much, why does he send some of us to Hell where we will be tortured for eternity? That’s sure is some “loving” God you have there. And by the way, if as you say you take God at his word, then do you kill homosexuals? Do you own slaves?

Hey guys and gals, question for you. What gives? Why so much hostility toward having “faith” in something, or faith in God, lets say?

Faith is dishonesty.

TheChampion - 26 September 2009 09:48 PM

Your thinking and rationale appears to be limited to that which can be verified by science.

Just as this statement is clearly dishonest. You’ve been told why this is false, so you know better, yet you persist in pretending otherwise. Your religious faith is what enables you to be dishonest like this.

TheChampion - 26 September 2009 09:48 PM

What is the first thing you would do the moment you hear the words, ‘it might be liver cancer, we have to verify, but if it is, two months, maybe four with chemo.’ Well you would cry out to God. When your life is on the life, I’m willing to bet, and I’m not a betting man, that each and every one of you in your own way would have a conversation with the dude you been fighting against all these years.

That’s because you’re an ideological coward, which is an important element of religious faith. It’s also because you’re a narcissist who thinks you’re so important that reality should work differently for you than for others. Because of your effort to deceive yourself and maintain the deception, you’re also detached from reality to a problematic extent such that you would more than likely be quite able to refuse reality access to your perceptions even in the circumstances you mentioned, which brings us full circle back to your ideological cowardice.

TheChampion - 26 September 2009 09:48 PM

So I am trying to wrap my mind on how you process your thinking.

No you’re not. You’re just trying to further affirm your constantly challenged world view. Realtiy fails to comply with this need so you have to fabricate your sense of affirmation from whatever bullshit you can pile up. That’s what religious apologetics are all about.

TheChampion - 26 September 2009 09:48 PM

Sorry, guess you guys can be my “lab rats” so I can understand the athiestic mind, I got a hunch that it purely stems from anger with God ...

Another self-deception that’s been corrected multiple times that you still manage to hang onto due to the aforementioned lack of integrity.

TheChampion - 26 September 2009 09:48 PM

... sometimes I see things that make me ask - why?

But you lack the character to make an honest attempt to answer. In fact you’re quite clearly sufficiently dishonest to resist learning the answer(s) in spite of being repeatedly exposed to obvious answers.

Faith makes otherwise perfectly good, even noble people into loathsome and sorry excuses for members of the human race. For the majority of the faithful their faith only corrodes certain areas of their integrity, but for the more hard core faithful it destroys their character to a far more extensive degree.

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“We say, ‘Love your brother…’ We don’t say it really, but… Well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either, but… But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins

I mean, what is the first thing you would do the moment your boat capsizes 80 miles out? You would cry out to God Almighty.

1. Secure the radio.
2. Secure the life raft and life preservers.
3. Begin assessing the feasibility of righting the boat.
4. Remind myself to never bring that useless whining tub of goo crying out to god on my boat again. Ever.

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“I am one of the few people I know who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror.” Sam Harris October 17, 2005

I mean, what is the first thing you would do the moment your boat capsizes 80 miles out? You would cry out to God Almighty.

1. Secure the radio.
2. Secure the life raft and life preservers.
3. Begin assessing the feasibility of righting the boat.
4. Remind myself to never bring that useless whining tub of goo crying out to god on my boat again. Ever.

All believers are arguing when they present whatever iteration the “no atheists in foxholes” argument is that they think fear is a primary motivation for religious belief—that God is the answer when you’re afraid and you can’t do anything useful to deal with it.

Kind of like sacrificing virgins to the volcano god.

This kind of believer is a mental infant regarding matters of faith.

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“We say, ‘Love your brother…’ We don’t say it really, but… Well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either, but… But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins

I mean, what is the first thing you would do the moment your boat capsizes 80 miles out? You would cry out to God Almighty.

1. Secure the radio.
2. Secure the life raft and life preservers.
3. Begin assessing the feasibility of righting the boat.
4. Remind myself to never bring that useless whining tub of goo crying out to god on my boat again. Ever.

All believers are arguing when they present whatever iteration the “no atheists in foxholes” argument is that they think fear is a primary motivation for religious belief—that God is the answer when you’re afraid and you can’t do anything useful to deal with it.

Kind of like sacrificing virgins to the volcano god.

This kind of believer is a mental infant regarding matters of faith.

Sullenberger did a lot of thanking post-emergency landing his plane on the Hudson River, but never publically thanked god. I think he was being polite and non-offensive when asked: Chesley Sullenberger: ‘I left the praying to passengers’

I mean, what is the first thing you would do the moment your boat capsizes 80 miles out? You would cry out to God Almighty.

1. Secure the radio.
2. Secure the life raft and life preservers.
3. Begin assessing the feasibility of righting the boat.
4. Remind myself to never bring that useless whining tub of goo crying out to god on my boat again. Ever.

I’ll see if I can get some literature to back this, but I’m almost positive accident reports back this - usually the first people to die in emergencies are the ones who do leave it up to the “skymaster”. Those who take matters into their own hands have a much higher success rate of coming out alive.

Also, as to why I am an atheist - well, we’re all atheists. Some of us just take it one god further. When you finally understand why you reject all other gods, you will understand why I reject yours.

People like you are the most ironic sort of Christians. Allegedly an open-minded people preaching acceptance and understanding, you are an iron-headed group of hypocrites.

I am an atheist, but was raised Catholic until I was 16. I have no problems with who you refer to as “God,” nor do I have anything wrong with people having faith. I would even go so far as to say that I actually like the idea of religion. I enjoy the comfort of having a higher mystical being looking out for me. But frankly, I’m just not buying it.

I start having a problem with Christianity, and other religions in general, when your silly, story-book beliefs start to affect me. When your arrogant pastor wakes me up on a Saturday morning at 8 AM by ringing my doorbell, preaching the end of the world and the need for salvation, then yeah, I’m going to have a conflict with your faith. And when people preach that the Bible’s take on one issue (Cough Cough Abortion…) should regulate the laws of the United States, yeah, there’s going to be a problem.

All you people say that you’re just trying to save me, or that you’re being a messenger of your faith. Yeah. Okay. Well it’s obviously not working. And it’s not my problem with your faith, it’s my problem with the way you manipulate it. So take your cheap leather book, get off my porch, and quit ringing the doorbell.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matt 11:28-29

In a personally life-threatening incident when I thought I’d bought the farm and had time to consider my passing, my thoughts revolved around how complicated my wife’s life was going to get after I was gone, and regret for not having more time with my loved ones. No thoughts about any deity entered the picture. Sorry to shatter you assumption.

I’ve been there a couple of times myself (once in the Army, once a few years back), and I’ve dealt with several people who were there. Most do get very religiofied (more than likely they were to begin with though), but personally I tend to think about how to get out of the situation and/or fix the problem. I wasn’t inclined toward whining to God narcissism even when I was a devout believer though.

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“We say, ‘Love your brother…’ We don’t say it really, but… Well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either, but… But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins

I mean, what is the first thing you would do the moment your boat capsizes 80 miles out?

I’m a sailor and I capsized my catamaran five miles outside of Santa Cruz in 30 knot winds and cresting eight foot swells. It was no big deal. I righted the boat solo as my crew held on. It took a little effort to haul her aboard since she didn’t have the upper body strength to do it herself. I improvised and tied two loops in the righting line so she could use her legs to climb aboard. No god required, but what was required was skill, confidence, life vests, and a clear head.

TheChampion - 26 September 2009 09:48 PM

What is the first thing you would do the moment you hear the words, ‘it might be liver cancer, we have to verify, but if it is, two months, maybe four with chemo.’

I was with my wife when the doctor told us she tested positive for breast cancer. It’s frightening but it didn’t make me run to religion for answers. On the contrary, we went to science and she recovered. No god necessary.

C’mon Champ, you’re just rattling our cages. If you haven’t figured out the atheist mind after a couple thousand posts it means you don’t care to.